


Wake Up

by Buchanan



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Based off of a vine, M/M, Oneshot, They sleep, but then they DONT, thx for reading lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 09:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16194887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buchanan/pseuds/Buchanan
Summary: Basic oneshot. Karen causes a scene that wakes up both Matt Murdock and his counterpart. Nothing too serious.





	Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of that “WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD!” vine, but far more dramatic and slightly divergent from the canon. 
> 
> And by slightly, I mean a lot. 
> 
> Special thanks to Orzo for hyping me up enough to write this. :) ❤️ Frank dies at the end.

Morning—the ideal time being 8 AM—peaked when sun trickled in through the open blinds of glass windows. That, of course, was the _ideal_ instance; the present morning, however, was not as desirable, nor was it in any way a pleasant experience in general.

Matthew Murdock, whose eyes were shut and whose torso was kept warm by a lean arm wrapped firmly around him, was wholly immersed in a realm unable to be reached in the real world. Call it the dreamscape or simply his mind’s eye, but the point stood; he was amidst a gradual resurfacing back to earth from the deepest pits of his REM cycle, but unfortunately, he’d be yanked back to reality sooner than he had anticipated.

There was a soft click coming from the front door handle, which was a room over, and yet despite the borderline inaudible sound, Matt’s eyes snapped open. Nothing was overtly visible, of course, but his senses fired up with a jolt of adrenaline as he heard the clicks of heels echo throughout his home. Judging by the gait alone, Matt had quite a strong inkling that the intruder was Karen Page, a former lover and coworker of his. 

“Matt?” Karen called out, her shaky, concerned voice echoing throughout the main room. Matt was only separated from her by a single wooden door, meaning that his chances of avoiding confrontation were minuscule. Rather than formulating an escape plan—which he would’ve done, should it have been an angrier pursuer invading his home—Matt gently shook the taut, scarred bare shoulder of the sleeping person trapping him in an embrace. As he did so, he heard the footsteps and the echoing voice getting farther and farther into his home, wherein he then came to the conclusion that the woman searching for him was in the kitchen. That was far enough for him to softly speak without being heard.

 “Frank, hey,” Murdock whispered lowly, watching as Frank Castle stirred and slowly lifted his head off the plush pillow beneath it, blinking groggily as if there was fog covering his dark eyes. The grip of the marine didn’t ease up, regardless of whether or not he was now awake, so Matt shook him again, unable to know if Frank’s eyes were actually open at that point. “Someone’s here.”

Frank grunted sleepily, let his head fall back onto the pillow, and shut his eyes again.

“Matt, seriously, you haven’t been answering any of our calls,” Karen called out, her voice and footsteps ringing louder in Matt’s ears. She was drawing closer.

Cursing under his breath, Murdock pulled the sheets covering him and Frank up as much as he could manage without showing either of their legs, and used it to cover Frank’s head to the best of his ability. It was easy to reminisce and savor his company, should the instance come up in which it was only the two of them, but now...now was certainly not among the most favorable situations to be in.

“Are you even—“ The doorknob granting access into the bedroom clicked, and the hinges of the door squeaked as it opened slowly. Karen peeked her head into the room, where Matt lay on his bed, inconspicuous to the most attainable extent. “Oh.” 

“Uh, good morning,” Murdock murmured, raking a hand through his hair. So much for inconspicuous—this was definitely awkward. 

“Where the hell have you been?” Karen immediately inquires, proceeding farther into the room. Matt could practically hear the steam blowing out of her ears. “Foggy and I called you countless times last night. You know what we said about—“

Karen sharply paused, if there ever existed such an action, and stared at the floor. What she bore such a harsh gaze upon, of course, was the dark suit forming a pool of cloth on the ground—the one that Matt forgot to stow away, because the need to do so never really crossed his mind the day prior. Knowing that _that_ was the most likely reason as to why Karen suddenly stopped talking, a drawled sigh left his lips. There was no escaping this one.

“I can explain,” Matt said before he could even think up a quick excuse, and as he spoke, the sheets moved along with Frank, who withdrew his arm from around Matt’s torso and instead used it to prop his upper body up. As a result, the sheets were disheveled to the point where his head and neck were then visible, and Matt could no longer feel the other man’s warm breaths on his back.

“Huh?” Frank croaked.

Karen’s jaw dropped as she glanced between Matt, who was staring blankly at the wall behind her, and Frank, who was glaring daggers into her skull through half-lidded eyes. “Frank Castle? Are you...?”

“Daredevil? Nah,” Frank murmured, his voice low and raspy from exhaustion and _Lord_ _knows_ _what_ from the night before. “You think I’d run around Hell’s Kitchen dressed in that? No chance.” Matt sighed, rolled over onto his side so his bare back was facing Karen, and hid his face in the sheets. Similar to Frank, scars decorated his skin, serving as trophies for the fights he had won and reminders of the ones he hadn’t.

It clicked in Karen’s mind that the man who lay beside Frank was never a man whom she had ever truly known. But then again, how could she have been so oblivious? The scars, the bruises, the welts that Matt carried with him back home...those couldn’t have simply been accidents serving as upshots of his blindness. She should’ve voiced her internalized inquiries beforehand, but since she bit her tongue in the past, they spilled out of her mouth in the present, despite her attempts to withhold them.

“You—” Karen stammered, her voice quivering. “ _You’re_ the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen? How? God, Matt, you’re _blind_! How are you not dead? And why is the _Punisher_ in your bed?”

“Karen.” Matt sighed slowly, unable to see Karen pressing a hand against her lips in an attempt to muffle gentle sobs as her emotions came crashing down. Murdock really couldn’t blame her, however; the magnitude of the things she was currently attempting to process and comprehend must have been heavy. Beyond heavy. Crushing, at the bare minimum. The image of the Matt Murdock she’d come to know and once love was all a big, stupid facade, and it seemed as though Matt, Foggy, or anybody else simply didn’t give a shit. “Just give me some time to explain.”

“No, you had your time,” she said, her voice wavering as she stepped back. “You had weeks. _Months_. And throughout that time, I didn’t think it was necessary to question you, because I really did trust you, Matt. But wouldn’t you know it, the esteemed Devil was sitting right here under my...right under my nose this entire time, right next to the _second_ most batshit vigilante in Hell’s Kitchen.”

There was a bitter pause in which everything was dead silent, aside from the labored breathing coming from both sides of the room. Karen swallowed, turned toward the door, and slowly traipsed out, the clicks of her heels softer than before. Before she fled through the front door, she left a final message for her former confidant: “Fuck you, Matthew.”

And with that, a couple of beats later, she was gone.

“What a shit show,” Frank grumbled, sluggishly pressing his face against the pillow Matt’s head rested on. He slowly shut his eyes and attempted to drift off once more, paying no mind to Matt’s clenched jaw, stiff body, and wide eyes.


End file.
